One Day You Will
by Is Mise
Summary: Into The Fire Fic Sorry if you thought it was BDS if this is inapropriate let me know. One night in Walter Hartwig Jr's life. His guilt and ways of coping with it. Graphic Self Injury please proceed with caution.


One day you will By Lady Antebellum

You feel like you're falling backwards

Like you're slippin' through the cracks

Like no one would even notice

If you left this town and never came back

You walk outside and all you see is rain

You look inside and all you feel is pain

And you can't see it now

[Chorus]But down the road the sun is shining

In every cloud there's a silver lining

Just keep holding on (just keep holding on)

And every heartache makes you stronger

But it won't be much longer

You'll find love, you'll find peace

And the you you're meant to be

I know right now that's not the way you fee

lBut one day you will

You wake up every morning and ask yourself

What am I doing here anyway

With the weight of all those disappointments

Whispering in your ear

You're just barely hanging by a thread

You wanna scream but you're down to your last breath

And you don't know it yet

[Repeat Chorus]Find the strength to rise aboveYou will

Find just what you're made of, you're made of

[Repeat Chorus]One day you will

Oh one day you will

* * *

"Please sir, can you help me? Can you tell me what happened to my sister?" Catrina's voice echoes loudly through him.

"Hey partner you got my back?" Menetti breathes "All day and Always partner All day and always" echoes even louder.

However, the silence echoes louder still.

Walter's dreams engulfed him more deeply than he could ever imagine.

He had succumbed to the smells, touches, and felt the soft cry in Catrina's voice, the tremble of slight fear in his partner and friend, Sandy.

Then he heard _her_.

Her laughter rang through him, crawling into his skin burying deep in the blood coursing to his heart and planting itself there never to leave him.

"Come on Wally! Please? I am too scared to go alone." She had begged him then, wanting to feel the ocean run through her, to smell and taste the salt. To maybe get off her brother's shoulder and swim to him making his smile grow into pride pulsing out of him at the sight of her swimming without his help.

"Get on Melissa." Walter knelt with his back to his sister urging her to climb on.

The laughs and screams coming from the roller coaster masked the laugh of his father and the nervous banter of his mother.

The feel of the gritty sand beneath his feet, seeping between his toes cold but somehow warm the feeling bringing his eyes closed with the sense he was truly home now.

He laughed as he gripped Melissa's legs and carried her toward the ocean.

The scene changed from laughter and warmth to dark and cold.

Screams could be heard faintly as Walter swam farther out to sea soon diving under the water. Suddenly there were no more screams, no more laughter from the park, no more orders being barked in his father's booming voice, only… silence.

It engulfed Walter from every side, the silence trickling silently in his ears seeping down his throat threatening to swallow him whole. He swam frantically searching for her, just a shimmer of blond hair, red pants a hand; anything that was Melissa.

The waves became stronger as he swam farther.

Fighting the tide was wearing on his muscles but adrenaline overtook the pain in his legs and arms.

Fighting the urge to breathe, he swam straight back up to surface for some air.

He spun in circles looking everywhere to see if maybe she had the same urge as he and was surfaced as he was but he did not see anything but the small specs of people on shore screaming, worrying, and barking.

Submerging himself again, he fell to the silence once again.

Fighting the tide and darkness of the water willing himself to see into the depths of every corner every boulder every piece of trash at the bottom of the ocean to find her.

He fought against the urge to breathe again needing the air in his lungs.

As Walter looked up to surface, he saw a glimmer of something.

He swam towards the glimmer down and forward a few feet into the deep darkness.

As soon as he saw the blond hair reflect in the sun, the urge to breathe was no longer there, nothing was going through his mind except for the word "Melissa" rhythmically chanting with every push of the tide against his chest restricting his air and his reach for her.

When he reached her, the light shone down on her making her look like some sort of a vision.

Her hair flying all around her coming out of their pigtails with the rough tide, her eyes opened wide with peace, mouth opened slightly one arm above her head reaching for the heavens the other looking as if it was reaching for him.

He took her hand in his and kicked as hard as he could praying for the surface of the water to come soon, only to him it seemed to be going farther away.

His air leaving his lungs and water filling them, as he became feet from the surface, his grip never faltering on Melissa.

He tried to scream as the water threatened to take him and Melissa back in it's the depths.

Finally, his fingertips touched somewhere between sea and sky wishing he could grab onto it and pull himself up.

As he came to the surface, the silence left him and his own screaming was finally heard, pounding the breath right out of him.

* * *

Walter woke from his dream, throwing a hand over his mouth trying to quiet his own screams that had startled him out of his nightmare.

A few deep breaths into his lungs as his screams silenced, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale then the tears that reflected in his eyes fell at exhale number fourteen.

He counted his breathing, a technique he learned in diving school to calm his nerves.

As of that moment all that mattered to him was breath number forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, his tears never faltered with his breathing they fell at a pace that mimicked his breathing, sharp and fleeting.

His hand went underneath his pillow seeking out his true technique to calm him from his nightmare, to bring his thoughts to other things than the sounds of screaming laughter leaving the carnival, the smell of puke and hotdogs, the feel of Melissa's unmoving form in his arms, the taste of salt on his lips trying to breathe the air back into Melissa's lungs.

With his Swiss army knife in his grasp, he stopped counting his breaths at ninety-three and began to count the times the cold steel met his skin.

One.

The first cut being fast and unplanned just to calm him.

His soft tanned skin ripping apart.

Slowly opening.

His skin traumatized with the intrusion, not reacting right away.

It was deeper than he had planned but he does not care right now.

The sharpness of the cut does not hurt the second the metal connects with skin but slowly, just as slowly as the beads of blood begin to form in the folds of newly torn skin, a sting reverberates its way up his arm and through his neck making his eyes squint tight against the pain.

Two.

A flash of blood formed into his retinas instantly setting his breathing to a slower pace.

He let a finger slide down the back of the steel putting pressure on it just enough to indent his skin feeling a tinge of pain before he closed his eyes and pushed harder pulling it down to slice violently into his skin letting his blood flow down his arm in a thick steady trickle.

Three.

He brings the cold steel to his flesh more urgently now, forgoing the planning, forgetting about putting it in places that he could easily hide from other people.

He needed this, this punishment, this form of pain he inflicted on himself for a glimmer of redemption.

Four.

He grips the handle tightly closing his eyes, pulling in a deep breath, and holding it in his lungs trying to focus on his task.

He brought the blade down once again this time going slow.

He put even pressure on the sharp blade letting it bite into his flesh before pulling slowly, agonizingly slow.

This was a shallow cut; disappointingly shallow no punishment or relief overwhelming him with this one.

Five.

Determination powered his hand this time.

Applying the pressure needed, well practiced he allowed his mind to hear her laughter once more.

His closed his eyes to see his mother's anguished face, to feel her tremble when he came near her.

_Mom. _

He opened his eyes and welcomed the bite, the sting of the knife breaking open a few layers of skin close to a vein.

Six.

He watched the blood pool and trickle down his arm.

Painting slow rivers on his arm.

He built a dam with his next cut.

Cutting down the stream for it to veer more to the left instead of straight down now more blood joined the dark stream making it flow just a little faster more fierce.

Seven.

Going above the group of cuts closer to his elbow this time he brought the knife down and gently, teasingly traced out the name of "Melissa" with the tip of his blade before he allowed the guilt build once again and now the steady rush of blood was not enough.

He needed more.

His breathing became harsher, faster, and deeper again.

Once more loosing control.

He brought the knife down with a strained growl of pain.

He brought it deep; stabbing into his arm then slicing it down.

Praying he was close enough to the vein he figured he was near enough.

Eight.

He let a thought cross his brain, _"You lost your job. You can do what you want now. No one to hide them from anymore." _

With a slight weight lifted form his shoulders he realized that he didn't care that he was in fact alone, no one to hide his secret from, no one to explain it all to, no one to become uncomfortable with he could cut till he could no longer lift the blade to his arm and cut one more time.

He brought it down and cut a cross pattern across another cut.

In the fifteen years of doing this, this self-mutilation, self inflicted injury, he had never crossed one cut with another.

It felt oddly more effective in some way.

Bringing the blood faster more flooding down his arm gathering in his palm and overflowing between his fingers.

Nine.

He was numb, no longer feeling the sting of the blade, the heat as it tore between his soft skin tissues.

He went deeper and could no longer feel it and now the fire that went through his body, fueling the relief pouring out of his body all but consumed him and he could no longer control his hand to stop the abuse he was putting his arm through.

Ten.

He needed it more than any release he has ever felt in his life, his heart raced under his ribcage, waiting for the release, needing it to breathe against the pressure of need and want.

He growled as he stretched his arms above his head and pulled off his sweater blood seeping at the hem from the pool in his hand.

A vision of Catrina slammed against a wall, shock and pain in her eyes… because of him, seeped into his anger fueling it further.

He picked up his red handled Swiss Army knife and brought it to his right arm no that had considerably less scars than his left and left all reason behind as he let the knife bite and tear and bring his cut count to seventeen in just a matter of seconds, some shallow and taking their time to attribute to the blood pool, some deep and vengeful flowing out in long desperate rivers.

His father's voice sounding deep in his ears telling him that his mother had went to the ocean to be with Melissa only brought his knife to his right hand and let the blade find its comfortable spot back in the crook of Walter's forearm.

Twenty two.

His forearms beginning to become red and puffy he still felt tears and anger, scared and hurt, trembles and whispers diving deep in his veins needing to be released.

With a swift uncalculated movement, he brought the sharp point to his bicep and let it take what it needed, wanted.

Nowhere near enough he let it continue it path between right and left, hands streaming blood in its wake.

He brought it back down eyes closing as it pierces his forearm somewhere close to his elbow, a hallow howl breaking free from the lump in his throat.

Thirty seven.

He has never lost control with this before it scared him and somehow excited him.

Not sexually but in a way he could never begin to form words to explain there is not one word in the human dialog to express what he felt in those moments.

The blood spilling freely, no longer taints his soul.

Thirty nine brought a sharp screech form his mouth, having to bite his tongue to stop it from escaping louder.

But he could not stop.

He told himself this was enough it had to be, he was going to go too far and as much as he hated this life, no matter how much pain and guilt he lived with each and every day this was his redemption he held up for his mother father and sister, his form of a peace offering, never asking for forgiveness he was not worthy or deserving for that matter of their forgiveness.

So he lived and hurt each and everyday of his life to maybe feel an ounce of pain he had cause his parents taking away their little Melissa.

Forty four.

A pain he had never felt rushed through him.

He had hit something.

He knew it before he even opened his eyes.

His knees hit the floor landing in a slowly formed pool of blood, his blood, his sacrifice, his punishment.

The pain made him lose his grip on here and now, made him drop the knife he so desperately hung onto.

Grabbing at his wrist and opening his eyes a deep slice went form his elbow just above his wrist and under his slick and sticky fingers laid a cut that ran around his wrist leaking his life form it.

* * *

A knock on his door brought him back in a second.

Three frantic knocks came after the other.

Walter was screaming but the sound of blood rushing form his veins mixed with the pounding on the door now he realized he was screaming and could not stop.

He could not die, as much as he wanted to, he could not.

This was his way of making everything right for his family as much as that does not make sense to anyone else it was what was needed for his life to make sense.

"Walt! Open this door!" A few more frantic knocks on the door and than a deep sounding grunt on the other side made Walter stop screaming for just a moment.

Sandy?

Menetti?

Fuck!

He could not let him see this.

He fell back against the bed willing himself to become the bed so he would not see this.

A jingle of keys and the door opened quietly, Walter whimpered and cried silently more anxiously as the footsteps came closer.

He tried to stand up and close the door but could not send the message to his legs to move.

Shame took him now, no longer release or anger but shame.

His head hung as the tears fell from his face and blended with the blood diluting it a bit to make it pink instead of a deep mahogany red.

* * *

There was an annoyingly loud beeping echoing though Water's mind, his eyes tight shut against the bright light beating through his lashes.

His head spun as he opened his eyes, a burning rush of cold air hit him all at once, shivering against the cold his arms stung when his skin stretched accommodating the skin shivers radiating on his body.

Abruptly he closed his eyes once again banning the head spins taking a deep breath he opened his eyes at the sound of a familiar voice.

"Hey partner." Just a breath in his direction but a familiar breath.

His eyes screaming to be opened but so scared to come to the reality that was beginning to come back to him slowly.

He had ripped and shredded his skin too much, and Menetti had found him.

"Hey Partner," he whispered back, his voice strained from holding back screaming sobs the night before.

His head turned on the pillow slightly to get a better look at Sandy but his eyes still begging to stay closed against the offensive light.

They stayed silent for moments, no word spoken, unknown words that hung between them, between partners seemed almost unnecessary.

Walter tried to reach a hand up to his eyes to rub lightly to ban the sleep crusting around his eyes only to find them unmoving and sore.

His brow furrowed, creased with questions.

"You…" Sandy began only to stop, unsure of what else to say.

"Do you remember? Remember that I found you in the house?" Walter looked at Sandy unsure of what to say.

"Well I found you at the house and … well Walt. You know what you did." Sandy closed his eyes bringing in a deep breathe, his lungs welcoming the oxygen.

A warm hand resting in Walter's palm, he wrapped his fingers around his partners trying to reassure him in the best way he could right now.

"What were you thinking lieutenant? Can't you see that you are cared for? That we all need you? That I am here to catch you, All day and always. I won't let you fall." Sandy's grip tightened in Walter's palm, fingers intertwining with them.

" Just keep holding on Walt." Walter let the tears gather in his eyes.

"I'm scared San." He whispered, barely inaudible.

"I know you are, and that's ok. But one day everything will come together. You'll see Walt." He whispered back, " Everything will be ok. I got your back." Walter looked at Sandy for several seconds.

"All day?" Walter bit back a sob.

Sandy's eyes pierced him

"And always."

* * *

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